HANDOUT FOR OCT. 5: GREEK GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL THOUGHT
Terms:
Ostracism: Athens’ "negative election" in which the highest vote-getter is exiled for ten years. From ostraka, the potsherds used as ballots.
Metics: "Resident aliens." Non-Athenians who could live and do business in Athens, but could not vote or own property.
Medizer: One who is suspected of having "Persian sympathies." A common slur against one’s political opponents. From "Medes."
Laconia, Lacedaemon: Alternative names for Sparta and the Spartans.
Helots: The enslaved peasants or serfs of Sparta.
Plato’s forms of government:
Timarchy: From timé, honor. Plato’s word for a constitution based on virtue and nobility. When people care more about money than honor, it degenerates into:
Oligarchy: Rule by the rich. When the poor become jealous of the rich, they rise up and install:
Democracy: Rule by the masses. Enforced equality, no rules and no discipline. Chaos leads to violence, which leads to:
Tyranny: Rule by one man, who has seized power by violence.
Aristotle’s forms of government:
For each form, there is a "good" version, where the rulers act in the common interests of all, and a "bad" version, where they act only in their own interests.
Rule by One: Monarchy (good) or Tyranny (bad)
Rule by a Few: Aristocracy (good) or Oligarchy (bad)
Rule by Many: Constitutionalism (good) or Democracy (bad).
Chronology:
c.650-600? Possible dates for the reforms of Lycurgus in Sparta.
507: Cleisthenes’ democratic reforms in Athens.
490-479: Persian Wars.
471: Themistocles ostracized and exiled.
461: Pericles rises to prominence.
447-432: Construction of Parthenon.
431-404: Peloponnesian War.
431: Pericles delivers the "Funeral Oration."
c.430-420? Possible date of "The Old Oligarch."
427-348: Plato.
384-322: Aristotle.